3 Steps to Get More of Your Residents Paying Rent Online

So you’ve made the step to offer your residents online rent payment options. You’re ahead of the competition down the street still trying to organize their spreadsheets and deposit checks on-time! But convincing your residents to use online rent payments can be a trickier feat.

Millennial renters will get it instantly; many have never even seen a checkbook before. But some renters are averse to using their debit cards online, afraid to submit personal information through the Internet. When people discover the ease and flexibility of paying their rent online, everyone (property managers and residents) will be much happier.

How do you get your renters to sign up for online rent payments? First, explain to them the benefits of online rent payments—you can securely pay rent from anywhere with your mobile device; no late fees when checks go missing; you always know the status of your payments.

Still not convinced? Try an incentive to kickstart the process. Here are some tips for running a raffle to get more of your residents using an online rent payment platform:

Step #1 – Decide What to Offer

The benefits should speak for themselves, but sometimes renters need a little motivation. This is where you should think long and hard about what you want to offer in your online rent payment raffle. It should be useful. Here are some ideas:

Depending on your budget and if it would be of interest to your residents, you could give away something fun like an iPod shuffle ($49) or a Google Chromecast ($35).

If you run one raffle and don’t see a lot of success, try a different prize the next time around until you find the winning incentive.

Step #2 – Market the Raffle to Your Residents

Use any method you can think of to get the word out about your raffle. Make it sound fun and exciting and more people will be engaged. A couple ways to reach renters:

Send an email or text message

Add a message on your website

Leave a flyer on a door or post in a common area

Tell your renters in person!

You might want to consider marketing heavily a week before rent is due. This adds urgency and with the first of the month coming fast, it’ll be fresh in their minds.

Step #3 – Announce the Winners!

Often, people hold a contest and only let the winner know when they’ve won. In this case, you’ll probably receive a number of phone calls and emails asking “who won?” So don’t forget to announce the winner publicly so everyone knows.

Congratulate the winner in your newsletter, and try to get a quote on how much they love using the online rent payment option. You can use this in your next contest. The social proof will help drive new residents to begin participating and keep the excitement level high.

With these tips hopefully you can motivate most of your residents to pay rent online and start enjoying all the extra time you will have during rent week.

5 comments

Good ideas, however I personally hate drawings. I never win, so I don’t even try any more. What I have done to get most of my tenants to pay rent online is: First, send the letter announcing the ability to pay rent online, included all the benefits and very easy to follow instructions on how to do it. Most people started doing it right away. After I got a lot of people doing it, then I started focusing on the tenants that were not paying online yet. I sent them a letter stating all of the things from the first letter but also offering them a free movie ticket if they pay online for the next month and a second movie ticket for the second month they pay online. That way, they know they are getting something nice for doing it rather than just a chance to win something. The cost of the movie tickets from AAA or Costco are about $7.50 each. In California, movies are like $12.00, so it is a nice discount and you are giving your tenants a $12 gift that only costs you $7.50. I was able to send a ticket to every tenant that paid online rather that one bigger item to only one person. I still have a few stragglers, so I am going to try to make it mandatory to pay rent online in the next couple of months. I love this feature. It is like having a personal assistant.

Rachel Jefferson

Hi Kendell, thanks for your comment! It’s awesome that you include an offer, like movie tickets, to all your residents who use online payments. Such a great idea and everybody wins! Thanks for sharing.

Marcelo

I have a few tenants who don’t trust online payments. One in particular I think he doesn’t have anyone to talk so he drive half way across town to bring the check and chat a little.
I like the idea even for other things that we need the tenants to pay attention. It has helped me a lot the online payment, tenants always take 10-15 minutes when they stop by with questions and conversation.
My statistics are 76% Payments Collected Online and 81% Units Paid Online.

Rachel Jefferson

Marcelo – Those are some great stats! I’m glad to hear you’re finding online payments valuable. Sounds like you have residents who value that human interaction – there are many ways to keep that human to human aspect in conjunction with offering online options (i.e., you could host seasonal events for your residents). Thanks for sharing!